wrote
back to Sweetheart and Little-Dad long scrawly letters that would have
disgraced her in the eyes of Miss Gray of the English department, but
expressed such utter happiness and contentment that Mrs. Travis, with a
little regret, dismissed the fear that Jerry would be lonely away from
her and Sunnyside.

After the first week of school the girls and boys settled down to what
Graham called "digging." Geometry looked less formidable to Jerry,
Cicero was like a beautiful old friend, Gyp was with her in English and
history, Ginny Cox was in one of her classes, too, and Jerry liked her
better each day. Patricia Everett was teaching her to play tennis until
basketball practice began.

There were the pleasant walks to and from school through the city
streets, whose teeming life never failed to fascinate Jerry; the jolly
recess, breaking the school session, when the girls gathered around the
long tables and ate their lunch; and then the afternoon's play on the
athletic field at Highacres.

Had old Peter Westley ever pictured, as he sat alone in his great empty
house, how Highacres would look after scores of young feet had trampled
over its velvety stretches? Perhaps he had liked that picture; perhaps,
to him, his halls were echoing even then to the hum of young voices;
perhaps he had felt that these young lives that would pass over the
threshold of the house he had built out into the world of men and women
would belong, in some way, to him who had never had a boy or girl.

One afternoon Gyp and Jerry lingered in the school building to prepare a
history lesson from references they had to find in the library. Gyp
hated to study; the drowsy stillness of the room was broken by the
pleasant shouting from the playground outside. She threw down her pencil
and stretched her long arms.

"Oh, goodness, Jerry--let's stop. We can ask mother all these things."

Jerry was quite willing to be tempted. She, too, had found it hard to
hold her attention to the Thirty-one Dynasties.

Gyp leaned toward her. "I'll tell you--let's go exploring. There are all
the rooms in the back we've never seen."

During the past six months workmen had been rebuilding the rear wing of
Highacres into laboratories. The changes had not been completed. Gyp and
Jerry climbed over materials and tools and little piles of rubbish,
poking inquisitive noses into every corner. Now and then Gyp stopped to
ask a workman a few questions. They stumbled around in the